Posted on 05/29/2012 1:53:58 PM PDT by BenLurkin
SANTA ANA (CBS) Vector control officials plan to try Tuesday to corral feral cats living on the campuses of two Santa Ana schools in an effort to reduce the flea population and stave off the spread of typhus, a potentially deadly disease.
Santa Ana officials announced last week that someone living near Broadway and Washington Avenue in Santa Ana was hospitalized with typhus last month but has since recovered. City spokesman Jose Gonzalez underscored this morning that the victim had no connection with any local schools.
Orange County Vector Control officials have been passing out literature to residents in the area on avoiding getting the disease, which primarily is transmitted by fleas, Gonzalez said.
The issue here is the person lives in close proximity to two schools and because there are feral cats on the school grounds, Gonzalez said.
Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said vector control officials will lay traps today at Frances E. Willard Intermediate School in the 1300 block of North Ross Street and El Sol Science and Arts Academy in the 1000 block of North Broadway.
He said the workers would be wearing hazard suits with masks and that residents should not be alarmed.
Vector control officials have set multiple traps in the area and have caught possums, but none of the feral cats known to be in the area, Gonzalez said. If caught, the feral cats will be sedated and euthanized.
City officials advised residents to treat their pets with flea-prevention medication and eliminate places where wild animals can find shelter and food.
Symptoms usually surface a week or two weeks after exposure and can include high fever, headaches, chills, body aches and pains and a rash. Typhus is treated with antibiotics. It can be fatal if left untreated.
Poor opossums.. They better not kill them!
I live in Orange County. I hadn’t heard about the threat of typhus. We have a huge population of fruit rats in the county. They have fleas too. I would think the feral cats would help to keep the fruit rat population down.
Ironically, possums are more likely to spread disease than feral cats. Besides, apparently the cats are a lot smarter, being natural predators.
I suppose it would be too much to ask these scumbags to close the border before more turd world treats get back into these United States?
Why do the vector control officials think that a third world disease was brought in by feral cats?
Betcha.
Would you please give the link to this article, thank you.
This article is one I would like to link to the source as gathering info. on feral cats.
Hmmm. Santa Ana, the city with 90% illegal aliens??
I can think of three reasons.
1. There is a Chinese family restaurant in the neighborhood that uses ALL sorts of creatures for the "chow mein"--as neighbors notice the disappearance of stray whatevers.
2 There is a Chinese family in the neighborhood that DOESN'T frequent the local butcher. 'Nuff said.
3. The vector control is nuts.
The Chinese immigrants DID bring us bubonic plague because the plague DID get its start in China.
Cats spread toxoplasmosis which is now proven to change human brains and personality.
Kill them.
How did they narrow it down to these cats and these fleas?
Did they find typhus in the feral cat area?
I mean you can have a flea hop on you while you’re at WalMart, so how do they know it came from that particular area?
I’ve noticed that some cats that live outside are more prone to ticks than fleas ; I think it’s because they don’t make very good hosts.They may have a flea here or there, but for some reason, they are not infested. Kittens I have seen infested and I think it’s because they have such a high body temp and fleas are drawn to heat.
I have cared for feral colonies-catching them, fixing them, trying to care for them, and fleas were never a big issue. Except for the kittens. So I’m really curious how they discovered this.
For you cat lovers (or not), my feral colonies are long gone. Once you fix them, you stop the colony from growing and they don’t live very long in the wild-even with rabies and other vaccines they might live 4-5 years. They are domesticated and aren’t meant to live in the woods or in old buildings.
We took in the last group of kittens that survived-that was about 9-10 years ago and we just lost one of them last weekend.
DEMOCATS ?
The cats are a scape goat. The Government in it’s infinite lack of wisdom will kill the cats then freak out as rats and other vermin make inroads into the area due to a predator being removed. Then the health situation will really tank and the Government will blame Bush or someone.
Instead of killing the cats and eliminating a predator of vermin in the area, there are other means to remove a large portion of the fleas and such.
Why haven’t they looked into that?
Freaking idiots.
I agree. I don’t buy this ‘cats are the culprit’ bullcr*p either.
I believe it was Genghis Khan who brought the bubonic plague to Europe.
What about all the birds they kill?
Well, Genghis Khan brought it to Turkey. He stopped there. The Italians brought it over from Turkey to the European mainland.
RATS -- they all allowed rats to infest their lives.
According to Wikipedia, it’s lice that are the vector, not fleas.
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